Thursday, November 24, 2016

The European Environment Agency (EEA), the EU's environment
watchdog has said air pollution is "the single largest environmental
health hazard in Europe." Around 467,000 premature deaths in 41 European
countries were linked to air pollution in 2013 blaming coal and biomass burning
industries, power plants and households for hundreds of thousands of premature
deaths across Europe.

The report drew on monitoring data from more than 400 cities
between 2000 and 2014. Despite improvements, about 85 percent of EU urban
residents in 2014 were exposed to particle pollution at levels deemed harmful
to health by the World Health Organization which has stricter standards than
Europe.